


Light The Lamps, I Want You Bathed In Gold Tonight

by TerribleTerribleOrbs



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Brief description of violence, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmares, SO, and then i said 'actually i want dialogue an dangst', comfort after a nightmare, hey! this is just two different plots in a trenchoat, its not like super graphic but its there, playing with hair, seriously this was supposed to be a character study revolving around light, sokka feeling insecure, sokka is just really really gay, takes place after the show ends, too many descriptions of lamplight, yeah - Freeform, zuko is a good husband
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:13:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26041741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerribleTerribleOrbs/pseuds/TerribleTerribleOrbs
Summary: Alternate Title: Is it creepy to stare at my husband for ten minutes while he sleeps? Anyway, babe, I had a nightmare,Excerpt: Yue’s light was cool, slivers of silver highlighting his cheekbones and lips, catching in his hair and somehow making it look even silkier than it already was. It made him appear sharper, almost ethereal, especially with his hair down at night, spilling across the pillow in dark strokes set against the pale gold frame of his pillow. It made Sokka feel… something. Gay, mostly. But also like he'd felt when he’d been with Yue. Not lesser, exactly, but it was definitely a reminder that he was in love with royalty. Not just royalty, but someone who was so unreal it hurt. Yue was a beautiful silver-haired princess blessed by the moon. Zuko was a prince (now Fire Lord) with golden eyes and golden fire who re-learned firebending from actual, literal dragons. Sokka was a guy with a boomerang and a failed invasion plan and he loved two magical people so much that his chest ached, and somehow, they loved him, too.And yeah, Zuko would lecture him for an hour if he heard that sort of self-deprecation, but he was also asleep, so, hah.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar), Yue (mentioned) - Relationship, past Sokka/Yue
Comments: 12
Kudos: 203





	Light The Lamps, I Want You Bathed In Gold Tonight

**Author's Note:**

> First finished Avatar fic! I saw the light pouring over my own bed from the hotel balcony a couple of days ago and tonight (2 am to be exact lmao) I got hit with the sudden need to put down the ideas that have been swirling in my head since. Cannot believe I actually finished something. I may edit this for clarity later since I'm operating on 0 hours of sleep rn.

_They’d won the war, technically. They’d won, but they_ hadn’t _, because everything was_ wrong _. Sokka was standing in the Caldera, and Ozai was kneeling, defeated, on the steps of his own palace, but that wasn’t right, they hadn’t fought there—_

_It didn’t matter. It was wrong but it was normal, too, unquestioned, and Sokka was too busy staring at his sister to think about it. She stood, which shouldn’t have been possible because her blue clothes were charred black and forked scars peeked out from under her sleeves and neckline, crawling up her neck and jaw like awful, twisted roots. And Azula was still shooting lightning at her, the sharp jolts of electricity arching up and around her and why wasn’t she reacting? Why wasn’t Aang doing anything? Why couldn’t Sokka move? Why, why, why—_

—-

Sokka woke up almost completely silent, save for the sharp inhale he took once his eyes shot open. He didn’t shoot straight up once he broke free of a nightmare, not like Zuko did, nor did he twist and groan (again, unlike Zuko) while still trapped within it. He just… froze, for a while, when he woke up. Felt himself breath, gripped the silk covers on their bed ( the same ones every bed in the palace had), pressed against his husband still sleeping beside him. 

After a few minutes, he sat up and looked around, still trying to ground himself in the weighty silence of their room. 

The moon was hidden behind layers of dark, rain-heavy clouds, which meant the only light penetrating the thick darkness of their bedroom was that of the lanterns outside and the glow from the hall behind their door trickling across the floor. The rest of Caldera City flickered outside, valid competition for the starry night sky currently hidden alongside Yue. 

There were two lanterns outside on their balcony, one hidden by the thick curtains Sokka had installed (just because Zuko rose with the sun didn’t mean _he_ had to) and one peaking through the sliver of window still visible. Its light spilled into their room and across the bed, gliding across the smooth red silk and getting caught on the thick furs by their feet (another one of Sokka’s additions. It was too hot to sleep with them on but they made the place feel a bit more like home). 

Some of that light fell onto Zuko’s face, too, and Sokka found a distraction from his nightmare in how different moonlight and lantern light looked on him. 

Yue’s light was cool, slivers of silver highlighting his cheekbones and lips, catching in his hair and somehow making it look even silkier than it already was. It made him appear sharper, almost ethereal — especially when Sokka convinced him to let his hair down at night and it spilled across the pillow in dark strokes set against a pale gold frame. It made Sokka feel… something. Gay, mostly. But also like he'd felt when he’d been with Yue. Not _lesser_ , exactly, but it was definitely a reminder that he was in love with _royalty_ . Not just royalty, but someone who was so unreal it hurt. Yue was a beautiful silver-haired princess blessed by the moon. Zuko was a prince (now _Fire Lord_ ) with golden eyes and golden fire who re-learned firebending from actual, literal dragons. Sokka was a guy with a boomerang and a failed invasion plan and he loved two magical people so much that his chest ached, and somehow, they loved him, too.

And yeah, Zuko would lecture him for an hour if he heard that sort of self-deprecation, but he was also asleep, so, _hah_. 

Besides, he didn’t really feel that way right now, because it wasn’t the moonlight hitting Zuko’s face — it was the lamplight, and that made a world of difference. Sokka saw him lit with this warm, reddish-gold light all the time. He saw it when Zuko made tea late at night, or when he would firebend, or when he sat in his throne room — just pretty much anywhere around the palace where there was fire, and that was literally everywhere. It was only slightly different at night. The gentle lamp light from outside softened the sharper edges of his face and made his hair look soft like when it had still been short. It looked like he was glowing, sort of, but it wasn’t ethereal. It was just… quiet, gentle. Domestic. He wasn’t this almost spirit-like figure, he wasn’t this untouchable prince. 

He was Sokka’s husband who went to every new Ember Island Players show just to complain about how bad it was, who got excited when Piandao offered to have him teach the Dao Dai to one of his students, who took the full two-day trip to Ba Sing Se every month just to serve tea in his uncle’s shop. He left the door open in every room he went to and got annoyed when Sokka did the same thing (which, to be fair, Sokka did on purpose while Zuko did it on accident). He showered Sokka in compliments without even realizing that’s what he was doing (a rant about how unfairly beautiful Water Tribe eyes were, during which he used Sokka as an example, came to mind) and called him “Love” during Important Political Meetings because his brain couldn’t separate Husband Sokka from Water Tribe Ambassador Sokka. 

He wasn’t Fire Lord Zuko under the lamplight, he was _Sokka’s Zuko_ , and it made him want to tuck himself against his husband’s back and hold on for the precious few hours they had before they both had to wake up and face a horde of Earth Kings and unsubtle Ozai loyalists. 

He really _did_ need to stop staring soon. Zuko always woke up if Sokka stared at him for too long (which he only knew because he had in fact stared at his husband for long stretches of sleepless nights before) and he didn’t need a grumpy Fire Lord for tomorrow’s early-morning reparation negotiations with the Earth Kingdom. 

He didn’t stop staring. 

He’d asked Zuko, once, how he always woke up when Sokka stared, and Zuko said it was probably because of Azula. She’d sneak into his bedroom when they were really young and just stand beside his bed, _looking_ at him. She did it when she had nightmares or got sick since her parents’ room wasn’t an option. If he didn’t stir at the door opening or the presence moving beside him, she would light a little flame on her pointer finger and hold it near whatever exposed skin was available above the covers. _“It didn’t hurt,”_ he’d assured when Sokka started ranting about psychotic little sisters, _“It was just uncomfortable enough to wake me up.”_ It made him hyper-aware, even in sleep, and when she did eventually start breaking into his room for more malicious reasons (fire-newts on his pillow, burning his blankets just enough to wake him up with the smell of smoke) it paid off to wake up quickly. 

It only took a little over ten minutes for Zuko to wake up, so Sokka drank up the view while he could. Sharp cheekbones and a sharper chin softened by the lamplight, thick dark hair, smooth, pale skin, perfect lips slowly tilting into a frown, two tired, golden eyes peering up at him with confusion and slight annoyance— 

Oh.

“Quit staring,” Zuko muttered, voice even rougher than usual as he started to sit up. 

“Shit, sorry. Go back to bed.” Sokka said quietly, already starting to settle against his own pillow. Zuko frowned harder.

“Why are you still awake?” He asked. A few strands of hair had fallen into his face, gently brushing against his nose and chin and mostly covering his scarred eye. Sokka yawned and reached forward to tuck them behind his ear. 

“Got greedy,” He said, grinning sleepily. “I knew you might wake up, but I thought I could get away with a little more staring. What can I say? You-” — he cut off with a yawn — “-look good in the lamplight.” He winked. He was tired though, so both eyes were half-lidded, making it less of a flirtatious wink and more a half-asleep eye flutter. Zuko rolled his eyes, stubbornly sticking to his perpetually-annoyed attitude even at 2:30 am.

“No, I mean-” and then _he_ cut off with a jaw-popping yawn, which quickly morphed into a very tired glare. “Bastard. You passed your yawn to me.” Sokka snickered. “And I know you didn’t just wake up to stare at me.”

“That’s why I _stayed_ awake.”

“Then why did you wake up?” Zuko asked, even though they both knew the answer. His glare softened quickly, as it always did so late at night (well, early in the morning, technically), and now it was his turn to lean forward and brush a few short hairs out of Sokka’s eyes. “Nightmare?”

Sokka sighed. Not for the first time, he wished he’d kept the nightmare thing to himself. It was a double standard, he knew, because he always gave Zuko shit for not telling him about his own night terrors — and, unlike Zuko, he actually pressed for details — but that was different. He wasn’t reliving childhood trauma like Zuko was (Sokka had wanted to punch Ozai _before_ , but Yue and La, if that want hadn’t increased tenfold since the first of Zuko’s nightmares that he’d been privy to) his dumb brain was just making new stuff up. 

What if that invasion had gone even worse? What if he’d dropped Toph when they were taking out the Fire Nation air fleet? What if Zuko’s stupid dad’s stupid _lesson_ was more deadly? What if it was more _effective_? What if, what if, what if…

_What if Zuko hadn’t gotten in the way of Azula’s lightning the day of their Agni Kai?_

Zuko said that all of that came from Sokka’s own trauma, same as him. _“Even if it didn’t,”_ He’d said, sounding suspiciously like his uncle, _“They wouldn’t be any less important than my own.”_ Maybe that was true, but it didn’t stop him from feeling guilty every time Zuko had to deal with them when he could be _sleeping_. 

“Stop being self-deprecating,” Zuko muttered, tugging lightly on one of the thin strands of hair that had escaped Sokka’s wolftail. It brought him back to the present.

“Stop reading my mind,” Sokka shot back. “Who are you, Aunt Wu?” 

“I have no idea who that is,” Zuko replied, deadpan. 

“Remind me to tell you that story sometime.” Sokka sighed, settling his head against his husband’s shoulder. “And Earth King Kuei. He still does those yearly trips around the country, right? I bet he’d fit in with that village.” 

“Why do I feel like that’s an insult?” Zuko muttered. 

“Probably because it kind of is. I mean, he’s gullible as hell. So is literally everyone in Aunt Wu’s village.” He pulled a face, thinking back on that one guy who refused to bathe because Aunt Wu told him not to. “They almost died because she told them they’d be fine. How crazy is that?”

Zuko hummed, fingers tangling in Sokka’s wolfail. “Tell me about it tomorrow, over breakfast. You need to sleep. A man needs his rest.”

“Sleep is for the weak.” He scoffed. “Ooh — keep doing that with my hair.”

“Can I take the band out?” Zuko asked softly, already working on slipping it off. 

“Mhm.” Sokka hummed. “Yeah, just put it on the nightstand so you don’t lose it again,” Zuko muttered something that sounded suspiciously like _I didn’t lose the last one,_ which was a total lie, and Sokka felt his hair loosen and fall, tickling his neck. Zuko settled low against the backboard, dragging Sokka down with him until his head was pillowed in his lap. His fingers immediately found their way into Sokka’s hair and started scratching at his scalp, moving from the base of his neck to the shaved sides and up to his hairline before moving down again. Sokka absolutely did not stifle a groan as Zuko quickly soothed the headache that had been pounding behind his eyes since he woke up with pictures of a lightning-charred Katara flashing in his mind. 

Then, he felt a very sudden kiss between the circle of his temple and the curve of his cheekbone. He smiled and turned his head, just slightly, to glance at Zuko out of the corner of his eye. 

“What was that for?” He asked, fully expecting Zuko to just roll his eyes and tell him — quiet and embarrassed like he always did — ‘I love you’. Instead, Zuko only brushed his thumb over the spot he’d kissed.

“You look good in the lamplight,” He murmured softly. “Different than in moonlight. Moonlight makes you— sharper, I guess? Colder, too, but in a good way. It throws me back to the North Pole when you were this handsome warrior with a boomerang and too much confidence and a horrible talent for making me question my sexuality.”

“Aw, you think I’m hot.” Sokka crooned after deliberating whether to point that out or the fact that Zuko inadvertently admitted to _also_ watching his husband as he slept. In the end, he decided the former was least likely to get him accused of hypocrisy.

“Past tense, Sokka.”

“Hey!” 

Zuko chuckled and kissed Sokka again, this time turning Sokka’s head enough to catch him on the lips. “Kidding. Anyway, it’s just so reminiscent of the South Pole. But here, as my husband, you’re always bathed in firelight. It’s warm, even against the blue you wear, and— I don’t know. It’s just a nice reminder, I guess, of how much we’ve changed. Grown. _Matured_.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Sokka scoffed. “I’ll be young forever.” 

“Well maybe only one of us has matured.” Zuko chuckled. Sokka squawked in offense, despite literally saying that exact same thing seconds before. They were quiet for a few more moments before Zuko spoke again. “That was… a dumb tangent. Sorry.” 

“No,” Sokka said quickly, turning again to look at him. “I — uh — actually thought kind of the same thing about you when I was staring, funnily enough.” And then, before things could get too cheesy, he added “I just didn’t say anything because I’m not a total sap like you.” 

Zuko pouted — well, it was more of a scowl, but Sokka preferred to call it a pout because it annoyed Zuko more — and withdrew his hands from Sokka’s scalp. 

“Wait, no! Come back, I take it back. I’m a sap, too.” He whined, grabbing Zuko’s hand and pushing it back against his hair. Zuko rolled his eyes.

“I didn’t go anywhere, Sokka.” He muttered, even as he started scratching Sokka’s scalp again. Sokka sighed in contentment. “Now. Go. To. Sleep.” He punctuated each word with a gentle tug on Sokka’s hair, not nearly enough to hurt but enough to make a point. 

“ _Fine_.” Sokka sighed. “If you kiss me again.” He added after a moment. 

“Political negotiations are supposed to wait until tomorrow.” Zuko murmured. Still, he leaned forward and planted a kiss on Sokka’s temple. Then, on his cheek. Finally, he turned Sokka’s face towards him once again and planted one last kiss on his lips, incredibly soft. “Sleep.” He whispered, mouth still pressed against Sokka’s as he entangled their free hands together. Sokka didn’t need much more convincing after that. 

He fell asleep staring at their hands pressed against the silk covers. His cool brown knuckles, rough and lightly scarred from years of fumbling with jawbone knives and South Pole ice shards, peeking out under Zuko’s own pale, unnaturally warm firebender’s hands, palms rough from handling his Dao Dai. 

And the warm lamplight colored both of them gold.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment and PLEASE tell me if you catch any mistakes I didn't edit. It's 3:38 in the morning when I'm posting this so I wouldn't be surprised if the flow was off.


End file.
